“We’re not done here yet,” Renning called after me.
“I’m an independent contractor,” I reminded her. “Call me tomorrow. If you need to know more about the case, talk to your current F5 team, and if you’re looking for something else, the company keeps on therapists for that purpose.”
She snickered as I bolted out the door.
Really, it was one of our more productive meetings together.
* * *
Ty stayedfor the early part of the investigation, but I gave Renning forty-eight hours with him before she had to send him back to Atlanta. Fortunately, he didn’t have to do much more than chat with an investigator while I was present, and sign a couple of NDAs to give the agency some security that he wasn’t going to go chatting away about his involvement in the case. I took him to the airport, offering a hug goodbye.
A hug I would have to remember until the next time I got to see him.
In the meantime, I continued working with the bureau as we sorted out the details of the case, further questioning Junior as well as some of his clan members, whom we’d also taken into custody while the investigation was underway. Throughout the process, my contact with outsiders, including Ty, was restricted, so a week and a half later, as soon as we finished tying up all the loose ends of the investigation, damned straight he was the first guy I called.
A week and a half away from Ty, without hearing his voice, felt like an eternity.
“They found out you were innocent?” he asked, his voice full of that playfulness I’d come to expect from him. “What’s going down with Ivan Junior?”
“Being taken to an IPB black site prison. They’ve been running him through the rounds, making sure he doesn’t have the names of any other agents or attempted to sell ours off to anyone else, but from what I’ve gathered, that’s not a concern at this point. Looks like he was acting alone to get back at us for the hit on his dad, nothing more.”
“And Spencer?”
I figured he had to ask, but it was the last thing I wanted to discuss.
Pain. Hurt. Betrayal. I experienced them all, but also skepticism. I couldn’t bring myself to believe Spencer would have deceived us like that. Yet Junior’s story lined up with a deposit we’d discovered Junior had made into Spencer’s bank account.
I’d trusted him.
In a way, I’d hoped that message he’d inscribed on his skin was his ghost coming back to work with me again. But maybe Renning was right, and he’d only left us that clue as vengeance against the clan for double-crossing him.
God-fucking-dammit.
Maybe that’s where I’d been the dummy.
“They’ve officially determined he was the mole,” I said, leaving it there. “The case is closed as far as the powers that be are concerned.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It is what it is,” I said, acting nonchalant, when really, every time I thought about it, I wanted to punch something. “All that matters is that I’m getting on the first flight out of here to come see you.”
“Well, I’ll be here, doing a little last-minute exam studying.”
“When I get there, I expect the books to be on the floor and the only thing for you to be is buried under me.”
He paused, and I heard a sound before Ty came back with: “Did you hear that? That’s the sound of my books hitting the floor. Take me, Liam. I’m all yours.”
I laughed, appreciating that Ty was able to bring that into my life again.
Joy. Hope-filled, passionate joy.
And yet, with everything that happened, I knew what came along with it: the fear that in an instant he could be pried from my grasp. But as we’d discussed already, it was a fear I could tolerate if it meant another moment in his gaze, another caress against his skin, another breath in his arms.
* * *
Not twelve hours later,I was knocking on his door—eager, too fucking eager.
I missed my Pretty Thing.
